Suggestions for FlashEFF

FlashEFF has been a very difficult thing for me to get a grasp of, maybe some people find it easy, but I definitely do not. I feel that the tutorials are far too basic and that there is not enough help available to get a firm grasp on it, and in the times I have posted on the forums I have received little help to guide me in the right direction, even Google doesn't provide me with anything that can help through other sites.

Maybe I am alone here, although I have a feeling I am not, but I don't get why it is so difficult to try and get all the timing down without using a 1,000 frames to do anything. I am told everything can be done on one frame? HOW?! where are the explanations for this on the site? Why are there no advanced tutorials on how to do this stuff?

The thing that is the most frustrating is that I actually recommended this to my boss, and it has proven so difficult for me to properly use that now I look like a fool for recommending it because I can never even get it to work right.

FlashEFF states "Even if you're a total Flash beginner you will find FlashEff easy to work with since no coding skills are required, and from the FlashEff Panel you will configure flash effects and transtions in seconds"

I don't feel this way...trying to accomplish anything beyond just a simple animation has proven to be quite difficult for me.

Sorry for ranting, but I think FlashEFF is seriously lacking on the help side of things.......

HiI'm sorry you feel this way about FlashEff, but when FlashEff was created everyone knew there will be people that weren't going to be pleased, there were going to be people that were upset because they can't do more things with it, that is too basic, other people say that is to hard to use( as yourself) but most of the people are thrilled with the component.FlashEff2 will be even more easy and more accessible to users, as it almost eliminates the need to adjust the parameters - which is one of the things that users think is hard, but at the same time FlashEff 2 will provide more advanced users the option to change all the settings as they see fit.About the issue regarding the use of 1000 frames to create an animation. It's been discussed in the forums already, but I'll try to throw some quick tips for you.

To use only one frame you will have to use the listeners that can be found here: [www.flasheff.com]Let's say you have 3 components named: fe1, fe2 and fe3You drag each of them on to a target(each component-one target)And then, add an event Listener on the component.

fe1.addEventListener(FLASHEFFEvents. TRANSITION_END, transitionEndHandler);Then use the "transitionEndHandler" (which is a function that is called at the end of the transition) to go to the next step of your animation. Let's say that in the next step you want to slide a picture in you stage. Set the fe2 component to have FESSlide and make sure it's autoplay = false( set it from the panel).Then, just type fe2.show() in the transitionEndHandler function.Better yet, instead of using code just play withe the transition delay and timing.For example if you set fe1 to have 2 seconds duration, and 0 delay, you could set the fe2 component to have a delay of 2 seconds and it will start right after the first one has finished.

There are lot's of things you could do but I can't really help you until you point to a precise problem. Tell me with what do you have problems and I'll try to help.

My frustration late last night may have led to an angrier post than I intended. I do feel that FlashEFF is lacking on the help side of things as far as tutorials go, I think they should provide more advanced tutorials explaining what you are trying to explain to me, but anyway...

The biggest thing I try to do with FlashEFF are image transitions without the image going to a blank screen before the next image animates in, I want it to be seamless so as the first one does it's hide animation you can see the next image below it, then that one does its hide animation and you can see the 3rd image below that has it slides off the screen(or whatever the animation may be) and at the end of it, it loops back to the first and starts over again, seamlessly.

Another thing I struggle with is adding buttons, for some reason, my button states on my first animation always seem to carry over onto the second animation and then if I have a button I want to use on the second animation it doesn't work, it shows up too late and carries over into the third animation...

I appreciate your help, I am frustrated trying to get this figured out, but hopefully I can get things squared away.

I have to agree with Mike. I think he's similar to me and works more on the graphics side of things. I use Dreamweaver in designer mode and rarely switch to code view. Same with flash. I don't know action script, and to be honest I don't really want to. Flash Eff was supposed to be a way to create nice animations without needing to know any AS.

Whenever Ionut posts even the simplest of code, my brain locks up. :P

I don't mind having 300+ frames in a file, that's fine by me. What I don't like is not knowing when the transition ends for sure. Even in your tutorials the guy is like "and that will take....oh....about 2 seconds". I find this difficult to work with. Being able to set the transition duration, similar to how you can set how long the object stays up before the next transition, would be helpful.

My second problem is, some transitions with larger pics, the frames are staggering. Almost like it's skipping frames. Not a smooth transition at all. It's sort of strange, but they look perfect when I preview them from flash, but when I publish the results staggers. I'll post an example later.

My biggest problem right now is posted in another post. Issues with preloaders:forum post linkI've basically given up on using Flash Eff for that project and instead used a simpler text transition. Sucks, because the Flash Eff effect was much nicer.

Anyway, nice app for some I guess. Maybe I'll give FlashEff2 a look. But unless some issues are worked out or at least explained without coding jargon, this app isn't what I thought it was.

UPDATE: I fixed that second issue. I had a movie clip on the bottom layer, then on the layer above that I had another movie clip that had a flash show transition. This was causing a staggering final product. I replaced the bottom layer movie with an image and everything seems fine. For my project I had no reason for the bottom object to be a movie, I'm just in the habit of converting everything to movies. This doesn't really explain why it was rendering staggered, but it fixed for this project.

UPDATE2: My preloader was fixed as well :D. It was a case of me being dumb really.

mikes02 Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> My frustration late last night may have led to an> angrier post than I intended. I do feel that> FlashEFF is lacking on the help side of things as> far as tutorials go, I think they should provide> more advanced tutorials explaining what you are> trying to explain to me, but anyway...>> The biggest thing I try to do with FlashEFF are> image transitions without the image going to a> blank screen before the next image animates in, I> want it to be seamless so as the first one does> it's hide animation you can see the next image> below it, then that one does its hide animation> and you can see the 3rd image below that has it> slides off the screen(or whatever the animation> may be) and at the end of it, it loops back to the> first and starts over again, seamlessly.>> Another thing I struggle with is adding buttons,> for some reason, my button states on my first> animation always seem to carry over onto the> second animation and then if I have a button I> want to use on the second animation it doesn't> work, it shows up too late and carries over into> the third animation...>> I appreciate your help, I am frustrated trying to> get this figured out, but hopefully I can get> things squared away.

I find myself in the same exact condition!Please, help us understanding how to do these things, cause I relaly like FlashEff, I'm using the free version and I'd really like to buy FalshEff 2 Premium but now it would be lost money cause I can't use it properly!

Ionut Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> Hey Tania, please tell me exactly what your> problem is, or even better, attach a fla file (> the one with the problem) and I'll try to come up> with a fix.

here's my fla,what I'm trying to do have is , as Mikes02 said: " image transitions without the image going to a blank screen before the next image animates in, I want it to be seamless so as the first one does it's hide animation you can see the next image below it, then that one does its hide animation and you can see the 3rd image below that has it slides off the screen(or whatever the animation may be) and at the end of it, it loops back to the first and starts over again, seamlessly."

If I got this right you want to see the next image after the first image has finished hiding.I attached an example of a fla doing just that. I started from your file and removed the show animation ( you can add them if you like, your call) and I have put the next image under the image that is currently animating so when the first image is fading out, or whatever animation you are using the image below it will be visible the whole time.Hope this helps

Ionut.P.S. When you export your final swf make sure there aren't any unused patterns imported in the library as they will make a bigger swf file.

My solution was to load in the image, show the transition, and then load the same image again into a clip underneath the original. (I know I'm duplicating disk access but I don't know how to copy images or clips in as3.) I don't use a hide transition, just the show transition. I used the event listener for transition end to start loading the next image and it seems to look nice now.